James and Danika's Wedding Extras

I'm in the middle of a three week period of the summer when my husband and I work at a community college to teach a "kids on campus" program. I teach a class on starting your own business (I know...I still laugh that I'm somehow qualified to teach this class). I have the same kids from 9-3 each day, Monday through Friday. It's not a summer camp. We don't run around outside or sing songs. These kids are straight up learning each day and for some reason, they really seem to like it.

Throughout the week, the kids get into groups and actually start their own businesses. They make a product, market the product, and sell the product at the end of the week to other classes and their parents.

(FYI - duct tape products are really in with 5th and 6th graders this year)

We also spend some time looking at real life young entrepreneurs. Each year, I'm absolutely amazed at just how much I learn from these young entrepreneurs and I honestly feel like I encourage myself even more than I teach my students. One thing this year that really stuck out to me as my students and I looked over different interviews from these young entrepreneurs was a quote from Arjun Rai. At the time of the interview, he was a junior in high school and was already the COO of an online advertising company and starting another one. (Pretty much the same as my high school accomplishments...)

Rai says, "For me, being ambitious means taking a risk and following a passion of mine. In most cases, that means building a company that caters to a need and is an extension of myself (source)."

I love that. I am going to find Arjun Rai, hug him, and let him know that his 17 year-old self inspires me to no end. "Building a company that caters to a need and is an extension of myself." Yes, please.

You see, I kind of feel like I tapped into something special with this little business. When I read extension of myself, I thought, yes...that's exactly what I feel like this is. I will be working on invitations and I will start to think, "am I really getting paid for this?" It may not be that special to anyone else, but it certainly has been to me.

 All that to say, I am fortunate to be teaching something for these three weeks that reminds me of how much I love what I am doing, and I'm hoping that it shows in my work and in my correspondence with my brides.  

But today I want to look at a particular bride's wedding extras. I've had a decently long relationship with Danika. She came to me in the fall of last year for me to help her with her Save the Dates, wedding invitations, and extras. The first two were finished by this past May. Then we got started on the extras for her wedding.

First up, the menu.

I'm telling you - I so wanted to eat this food. But I refrained from beginning the tempting, yet ultimately disastrous habit of crashing my brides' weddings. 

We stuck with the Estilo font for everything. Same as the invitations. It's so modern, but the paper product Danika chose added such a softness to it.

Place cards.

Love the yellow patterned paper. These place cards were held up by moss place holders at the wedding. I can't wait to see pictures of how they looked all set up.

The programs. As I've said before, I worked with Danika's mom, Terri, on most of her stuff. Terri's brother has a design business and good design definitely runs in the family. Terri's taste is just so classy and modern (just like her daughter's) and I adored how everything turned out.

There was a lot to fit on the programs and we did it with 4x11 folded program.

So lovely. I am constantly inspired by my brides' tastes. Each one of them is so unique and I can just imagine that each wedding is so beautiful, inspiring, and tasteful.

Next week I'm sharing the most intricate wedding invitation I have done to date, and I'm thrilled with how they turned out!